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Discussion Starter · #1 ·
Question:

What are the two red lights flanking the center backup light at the bottom of the rear bumper? Fog?
 

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I crawled under the car, and there are no bulbs in the location of the red reflectors on either side of the reverse light.
The mopar assembly that is installed does have circles where lights could possibly go, however they do not appear to be punch out capable.

I wonder if these are operational in other geographies? I would think an assembly that allows these lights could be procured, or a modder could punch the slots and wire to the other.

I annotated a picture to show the right side looking back. I do not show the left side of the single piece mopar assembly which is similar. However the left side does not have the "??????" wire harness. just the right side (all looking towards the back of the spider)
 

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Discussion Starter · #3 ·
Yeah, that sounds like a rear fog. When I had a BMW a couple of cars ago it has a rear fog fully wired and ready to go. Buy I had to buy a Euro light switch to make it work. When I ask "why?", I was told (not in a joking way) they they thoughts Americas were to stupid to know how to use it! Funny, if they are soooo smart, why did that car need to literally be crushed by BMW because of electrical gremlins they could not fix.

My wife will not allow me to buy another BMW..."ever"

Anyway..fog light. I am sure there will be a way to rectify the situation.
 

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Yeah, that sounds like a rear fog. When I had a BMW a couple of cars ago it has a rear fog fully wired and ready to go. Buy I had to buy a Euro light switch to make it work. When I ask "why?", I was told (not in a joking way) they they thoughts Americas were to stupid to know how to use it! Funny, if they are soooo smart, why did that car need to literally be crushed by BMW because of electrical gremlins they could not fix.

My wife will not allow me to buy another BMW..."ever"

Anyway..fog light. I am sure there will be a way to rectify the situation.
Ill do some more lighting tests in the dark, so I can see if it actually illuminates under any condition.
 

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That would be the rear fog light. Cars in NA don't use them so they don't cut the hole out for it. On my buddies vehicle we ended up using a step drill, opened the whole, fitted a light socket, and ran the wire to the parking lights so it was on whenever the parking lights were on. He had a thing for lights.. it was weird..
'
 

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We should wire it to blink when coasting like Formula-1 cars do when they're in harvesting mode. In that application, it flashes when the car is slowing (as a warning to the approaching car behind it). ;)

As the others have suggested, it's a euro-compliance thing. Used over there, inoperative over here. The tooling to create non-reflector models was probably deemed to be too expensive for such a limited application, so they simply kept it.

It's kinda like braille on drive-thru ATMs -- the same machine is used inside; so rather than design two units, braille exists on both (and is simply ignored in the drive-thru).
 

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Discussion Starter · #8 ·
Well from that one image, I would guess the male plug you have marked with "??????" is the plug since goes no where. It is plugged into a dummy socket would be my guess. And the opening to the lower left with the white cover is the socket since it is made for something plugging into it. Easier to mold in a free dummy socket and use the same wiring harness in every market.

So really to make it work you need is the light socket with bulb and ideally the factory switch, whatever that is. My guess it goes in one of the open slots next to the stability control button. The wires are likely right there waiting for a home.

And yeah....leaving it on ALL the time, is why we are denied and punished. "Bad Americans!"
 

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So I was able to get a full picture of the assembly
You can see that the right side is both wired and has two objects shown. (looking backwards). Left side is neither wired, nor has anything punched out.


I am going to go out on a limb, and totally guess that this is the location of the sensors to detect the key fob for for the trunk release. (total guess!)
It makes no sense to have a light on one side vs. the other. I believe this is a non-light function.
It is also obvious that there are locations available to punch out and utilize for lights. As indicated above for rear fog lights in Europe.


Once a wiring diagram is available, someone can confirm.
 

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Voltage present?

I crawled under the car, and there are no bulbs in the location of the red reflectors on either side of the reverse light.
The mopar assembly that is installed does have circles where lights could possibly go, however they do not appear to be punch out capable.

I wonder if these are operational in other geographies? I would think an assembly that allows these lights could be procured, or a modder could punch the slots and wire to the other.

I annotated a picture to show the right side looking back. I do not show the left side of the single piece mopar assembly which is similar. However the left side does not have the "??????" wire harness. just the right side (all looking towards the back of the spider)
Has anyone put a voltmeter on the ????? connector/cable (23)? See if it powers up at all?

I see in the exploded view of the rear lights it only has two bulbs. One for Reverse (2) and one for fog (22)? So does the fog lamp (22) reflect enough so it flood the "red" and appears as two lamps?

Can our over the pond/s Brother and Sisters verify?

FYI #2 is designated for all region of spiders. #22 is designated for the European and Australian Markets.

Aloha



http://keyeper.pekidi.com/navi?CAT_...ARTDRAWDATA&ALL_FIG=0&PRINT_MODE=0&GUI_LANG=3
 

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Has anyone put a voltmeter on the ????? connector/cable (23)? See if it powers up at all?

I see in the exploded view of the rear lights it only has two bulbs. One for Reverse (2) and one for fog (22)? So does the fog lamp (22) reflect enough so it flood the "red" and appears as two lamps?

Can our over the pond/s Brother and Sisters verify?

FYI #2 is designated for all region of spiders. #22 is designated for the European and Australian Markets.

Aloha



http://keyeper.pekidi.com/navi?CAT_...ARTDRAWDATA&ALL_FIG=0&PRINT_MODE=0&GUI_LANG=3
UK spec has one light as rear fog, not absolutely sure if the other side should work but I'm guessing not. Not unusual for cars to have just one rear fog lamp, looks like Fiat have just made the unit look symetrical. (Not sure why my photos appear upside down, it was the right way up this end, so I deleted it and turned it upside down and now it's still upside dwn when I upload it!)
 

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As others have stated, US sometimes do not get the Eurospec lighting of the fog lights. On my older Mercedes, when you turn on the fog lamps, both front and one rear light come on. The rear fog is red but uses a MUCH brighter light than the normal rear bulbs. The offset I understood to be so that drivers behind you know you are not braking but rather have the fogs on because they might not know where or what your normal rear lights look like.

The fog lights are for safety, but I know a number of drivers are using their fog lights for a "look", especially in SUVs. I have driven upon drivers of cars with Euro fogs lights active driving in normal weather on highways, and since there is no blizzard between them and I will politely blink my lights to let them know, but they never turn off the fogs. They think they look cool from the front and probably do not know what they look like from behind.
 

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UK spec has one light as rear fog, not absolutely sure if the other side should work but I'm guessing not. )
In Europe, rear fog lights are mandatory. Just one seems to be preferable to two, to distinguish them from brake lights. If a car has only one fog light, it needs to be on the centreline or on the offside. I assume that Fiat configured the lighting pod to allow the rear fog light bulb to be installed on the right side (looking forward) for right hand drive cars, and on the left side for left hand drive cars.
 

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Mahalo all...great insight to the purpose and use of the rear fog light.
 

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In Europe, rear fog lights are mandatory. Just one seems to be preferable to two, to distinguish them from brake lights. If a car has only one fog light, it needs to be on the centreline or on the offside. I assume that Fiat configured the lighting pod to allow the rear fog light bulb to be installed on the right side (looking forward) for right hand drive cars, and on the left side for left hand drive cars.
Ken I don't think the Fog is not allowed to be cetral, it has to be off set, and not by a lot.
 

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Ken I don't think the Fog is allowed to be cetral, it has to be offset, and not by a lot.
This is a quote from UN Regulation 48 applicable in the EU:

"In width: if there is only one rear fog-lamp, it shall be on the opposite side of the median longitudinal plane of the vehicle to the direction of traffic prescribed in the country of registration, the centre of reference may also be situated on the median longitudinal plane of the vehicle."

This is a bit hard to understand, so I think the equivalent section of the UK version (Road Vehicles Lighting Regulations 1989) makes a bit more sense:

"On the centre-line or off side of the vehicle (disregarding any sidecar forming part of a motor bicycle combination)"



Notwithstanding the above, I have never seen a rear fog lamp on the centreline. They have always been offset to the driver's side.
 

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some manufactures will produce cars which could be sold in both Europe and the US as I noticed with my boxsters. if you would exit the car with the turn signal engaged, as sometimes happens when pulling into the driveway, the fog/parking lights will illuminate. if the turn signal was in the right turn position the right would illuminate and the same for the left. it took me a while to figure out what was happening to me when this first happened... once I figured it out I felt really stupid after having lived in Germany for 3+ years...
 

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My Mercedes has a single red fog light on the right side. I asked the dealer if the left side was burned out or something, and probably sounded ignorant for the question.

I wonder if these red lenses would be a good place to put those pulsating brake lights that are so annoying to everyone following you in traffic (but probably help spare you getting rear-ended)?
 

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Many cars, certainly Audi, BMW, Jag, have two working rear fog lights built into the regular rear light clusters so look just like regular rear lights only brighter, why some go with one I don't know, it clearly doesn't have to be.

Many people tend to put them on as soon as there is a drop of rain, they can be dazzling and confusing as already pointed out. Regs in the UK state visibility below 100m before they used, I would suggest a great number of road users don't know that. Either that or they have no idea what 100m looks like.
 
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